Nanooks Sweep

The Nome Nanooks swept Ninilchik this weekend. We played two games on Saturday, in amongst the junior high and junior varsity playing against Bethel. We won the early afternoon match in three straight games (best of 5). That was good to me as a coach because these girls have to realize and feel how they can "put it away." So many times it has seemed like they have let the other teams creep back in. I got some flack for it for not playing every single girl more. It is hard to fit on twelve girls on a six-girl squad. There are so many times when I believe that the six on the court start a sort of harmony that shouldn't be disturbed. I especially don't want to disturb a girl on my team when she's serving.

I have to come to some sort of happy harmony. I really do want more of them to play. I have to balance VARSITY ball with playing and winning, when winning is a key focus on varsity. When I was the junior varsity soccer coach at South Kitsap High School, it was nice because I could put any player out at any time, damn the score. Junior varsity is about playing and getting skills to one day get on varsity. The twelve girls I do have I really believe are the twelve best and by them playing each other during practice they all get better.

At 5:00 on Saturday, we played Ninilchik again and won. We won the first game. I switched it up on the second game and it was a very close loss. We then won the third game. We lost the fourth game due to a lot of our own mistakes. We took care of business and put it away early in the fifth game. It's good for morale (and for concessions because I had to run concessions all weekend too).

We have the Alumni game coming up next weekend. It's hard for us to get a ton of games so we put on these little exhibitions. We travel to Dillingham the next weekend. Then it is regionals time on December 2nd. We are already up in the standings for beating Kotzebue. The top two teams out of Barrow, Kotzebue, and Nome get to travel to Anchorage the next week for State. I want that trip.